This season has been a bit of a grind for Mets relief prospect Dylan Ross.
The right-hander was viewed by many as a potential bullpen option heading into spring training, but he ended up dealing with injury and ineffectiveness throughout the year.
Ross has pitched to a 6.25 ERA with Syracuse this season.
He had been a bit better across 17 appearances in July and August, though, so the Mets decided to give him a shot this week as one of their September call-ups.
“Spring training was tough for him,” Andy Green said. “Took a while to get going, and once he finally did he scuffled to find the strike zone consistently, find his split, which he’s kind of lived with his entire career as his best pitch.
“In the last month or so he’s trended positively -- the velocity is back up near 100 at times, the split is really playing well, and he’s been spinning the baseball too -- these are all encouraging signs for us.”
Ross was able to continue that string of success jumping right into the fire making his MLB debut against one of MLB’s top lineups on Tuesday night.
The hard-throwing right-hander cruised through the bottom of the Rays order, requiring just 11 pitches as he put together a clean inning in his first appearance at the big-league level.
He topped out at 99.2 mph with his fastball his final pitch of the night.
“It was fun to see,” Green said.
To make it even better, Ross reached the milestone on his 26th birthday.
“I honestly forgot it was my birthday for the most part,” he said. “Traveling here and looking back on the last few years and this year, it’s just a blessing and I wouldn’t change it in any way.”
If Ross can stick with the club down the stretch, perhaps he'll be able to scratch out a role for himself in what is a relatively wide-open Mets bullpen at the moment heading into next season.